musical assiment

The musical film genre came about with the transition from silent film to sound film and also a natural development of the stage musical. A musical is in which several songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative. The directors used the songs to advance the plot or develop the film’s characters. The performers would often treat their song and dance numbers as if there were a live audience watching, by looking directly into the camera and performing to it. They used to be very popular but then had a fall out, though they are coming back again.

The 1930’s, 1940’s, and the 1950’s were often considered the golden age of musical film. That time was also by far when the genre’s popularity was at the top. The first so called “musical” was The Broadway Melody; it won the 1929 Academy Award for best picture. Another early musical, The Gold Diggers of Broadway, remained the highest grossing film for a decade. By the late 1930’s audiences had been oversaturated with musicals and studios were forced to cut music from films. Director Busby Berkeley brought musicals back though. He began to enhance traditional dance numbers with ideas drawn for the drill precisions that he had experienced as a soldier. Other directors followed his style and many more great musicals were made like Singing in the Rain, Over the Rainbow, The Wizard of Oz, and The Band Wagon. But yet again in the 1950’s musicals declined again in popularity. There was only one reason to explain this…the culture change in music to things like rock and roll and the freedom and youth associated with it.

Through-out the decades directors had been avoiding musicals by using popular music at that time as back ground music and then sell sound tracks to the film. Certain films began to make though; there were musicals made about actors, dancers or singers, and children’s animated movies. Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! (2001) has been widely credited with revitalizing the musical genre and setting the stage for films such as Chicago, Rent, and The Phantom of the Opera. The film was an instant success, in limited release it grossed $185,095 in only 2 theaters opening weekend and when it expanded to over 2,500 theaters it made $14.2 million in its first weekend. Eventually Moulin Rouge! grossed over $57 million domestically and made over $120 million internationally. It even broke box office records in Australia and won an Academy Award. Another big “new age” musical was Rob Marshall’s Chicago (2002). It won six Academy Awards, including best picture. The film was the first musical the win the Best Picture Oscar since 1968’s Oliver.

I think the upsurge in the popularity of musicals happened because there had not really been any good ones for a couple of years and people wanted something different for a change. It shows that to in the amount of awards and money that was come from the newer musicals.